If you’ve ever done a cleanse of sorts, whether a fast or maybe only liquids or just one type of food for a day or two, or even for a meal, you’ve likely experienced the glory of the most relaxed poop of your life. It’s effortless! And complete.

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And, as Kimberley Snyder has reminded me in some of her awesome books, more than the way we move our bodies, the foods we put into them affect our digestion more than anything else.

You can run 5 miles or do 108 sun salutations but you are not guaranteed a poop. You probably will though 🙂 What’s more generally more effective though than lots of physical movement, as wonderful as that is for overall health..for exceptional colon and digestive health, the foods matter the most. High fiber, lots of water, magnesium, load up the vitamins and minerals.

And what’s the deal with meat and almost all dairy products? No fiber! No wonder animal products cause all kinds of digestive problems. There’s no fiber to help these bodies digest!

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And why is pooping so important?

It’s a metaphor for the entire purifying process of life.

Purify body, purify mind, realize the Perfect Health of Soul at all times.

The more we purify the material dimensions of living, the more our spiritual essence shines forth. So yes, food can affect the quality of our consciousness and connection with the eternal. Poops affect this too! Everything’s connected.

What you put into your mouth affects the quality of your relationship with the Whole. We are what we eat and we are how we eat. Food is a sacred gift. If we take it for granted and abuse it, not only will that same abuse be evident in our poops, but it will also evince itself in our relationships with people and the entire creation.

If we slow down and begin to cherish our food, become conscious of the story of our food and the amazing gift that it is, brought to us with the help of the sun and rain and all humanity working harmoniously together to allow food to nourish us…if we connect with the reality that is the divine gift of food then we will eat it more responsibly, and we will choose the more compassionate foods for our bodies, minds, humanity, all forms of life, and the planet! The key is to slow down…and dare i say it…think. Think about the gift. Think about the reality of food. No reason to take it for granted. Cherish it instead, and enjoy it with a grateful heart.

Food digests best when we enjoy it, when we are relaxed, and at ease. If we doubt the quality of our food or its nutritional value, then that doubt will carry through the digestive process. We cannot hide anything from ourselves or from the universe. All is revealed. And especially the body knows! The body always knows. If ‘we’ doubt, the entire body doubts. If ‘we’ enjoy, the entire body enjoys…and that joy even carries over into a joyful poop!

Hallelujah!

Poop in Peace. And yes, i write this because i’ve definitely had some challenging poops the past couple days; testimony that i have been taking food for granted, not making the most healthful choices, and so here i am advising everyone else to not do how i’ve been doing 😉 So easy to say one thing and do another. Maybe some day the hypocrisy will fade away.

When you forget yourself, that is your small, physical self…that’s when you’re in the zone, and that’s an awesome place to be!

It’s liberating to immerse so fully in rendering service that you forget about the needs of your physical body, and ultimately perhaps what happens is the illusion of needs falls away, and you realize the only need ever is to be here now, to love and serve. So when you are loving and serving, the illusion of time disappears and there is nothing beyond the moment. You’re just in the zone!

I remember watching a video on YouTube about Beyonce’s keys to success…something like that. Maybe it was her personal trainer talking about her work ethic, saying something like, “She works so hard that she forgets to eat and she even forgets to sleep!” That’s how you know you’ve tapped into a vein of gold: when you forget to eat and sleep. Because you love what you’re doing so much, and you love the abundant investment you’re making in the future, that you forget about all the short-term nuances like eating and sleeping.

When staffing the Integral Yoga Hatha Level 1 Basic Teacher Training this Fall, there were many meals that i would either skip or eat very lightly. The service asked of me called me to a higher standard regarding care of the physical body and helped me remember that there are much greater joys to living than simply an abundant meal. Then again, practicing mindfulness, there really might not be greater joys than a fully conscious meal 😉 Alas, sometimes the work is so fulfilling that fulfillment / reward that sometimes comes via food and sleep no longer appeals, and instead you just want to serve and serve and serve. So…that’s good 🙂

When was the last time you were so immersed in your work and loving the compelling vision you were creating for the future that you let go of attachments to food and sleep. When was the last time you let go of the small physical self and elevated your awareness to the wonderful investment in the future, perhaps in eternity?

–> Practice mindfulness; being fully conscious in the Present Moment, and loving every bit of it, beholding the miracle in the Here and Now; amazed; reverential; awe-inspired. Or as a friend once said…”I live in the Wow.”

–> Exercise the imagination. In the mental realm, hold a vision of something or someone who inspires you. Maybe have a conversation with the Buddha, or with your projected Best Self, 5 years from now.

–> Walk. And enjoy it! Walking is awesome.

–> Breathe deeply. You can train yourself to thoroughly enjoy the mere act of breathing, and when you enjoy that, then you’ve realized a source of enjoyment that is with you every moment, from here to the passing of the physical body!

–> Develop a more loving, grateful, appreciative, open, warm, welcoming, abundant relationship with the Present Moment. What’s your relationship like with the Present Moment? It’s the ultimate relationship to invest in…perhaps because it is a relationship with the Ultimate 🙂

–> Practice seeing the good in everyone and everything, even seeing the Divine in All.

–> Express gratitude. For anything and everything! Build those neuroplastic grooves in the brain of gratitude, and allow your expressions of gratitude to generate wonderful feelings, just like when you breath!

–> Smile and laugh. We want to enjoy eternity, right? Have fun! Play 🙂 Enter the Kingdom by being like a child!

Well then…here’s to worthy investments 🙂 The above are all essentially meditation techniques of one kind of another…training and focusing the mind on something enduring, and focusing it in a way that expands perspective and helps open to possibility.

Imagine a world where there is none and has been no Jesus or Buddha or Muhammad or Mahavira or Gandhi or any saints and sages and wise ones. Imagine a world where there is no ultimate ideal for the highest achievement/realization of the human being.

Imagine what kind of implications that would have for your life, right now. How would you live differently if you never knew of any of these great saints and sages, prophets and seers, divine avatars, fully realized beings?

Maybe we’d then be the ones going on the 40 day fasts in the desert…

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Speaking of which…another fun imaginative / meditative exercise…

Imagine…you been in the desert for 40 days with no food, wearing the same rags every day, barely finding water to sip each day, it’s so hot!!!, and you just walk each day, burning up, praying, seeking the Highest Truth and Highest Good, and then after 40 days of searching, you stumble upon a modern day city. Imagine!!!

“This is so flippin’ abundant!!!”

Perspective is powerful. Maybe that’s why the Buddhists sometimes intentionally meditate on experiencing intense suffering…then they open their eyes, come out of it, back to Reality, and they’re like “Wow! My life is so good. But boy, that meditation was full of pain and suffering. Thank goodness i’m back to Reality :-)”

You might notice a progression…or perhaps a degression…moving along the ways in which distinguish ourselves and the ‘other.’ What’s your go-to ‘other’?

For me, often times the other is meat-eating people.

Sometimes the other is materialistic people and people motivated by material gain.

Sometimes the other is people who doubt Doubt, or who doubt the Goodness of Creation and of Life and of people.

For me, the other has also been people who lift weights in abundance (or maybe i judge it as excessive ;))

The other has also been those who have places to go, people to see, those who are looking for something beyond the present moment.

The other is often times the people who eat quickly, who eat without taking conscious breathes, who eat for short-term taste bud pleasure rather than the long-term fulfillment of a healthy, whole meal.

The other is also the people who allow their space to become cluttered and unorganized.

The other has been people who use drugs as a gateway to higher consciousness, or who encourage people to use drugs as a means to liberate themselves and grow closer to the true nature of reality.

Sometimes, the other is people who glue their eyes to a television screen, enamored by a 2-dimensional projection. The other is people who watch TV, read the newspaper, or even turn on the radio.

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For all these others…it is so easy to see myself in each and every one of them. There is no other. Only me 🙂

Hence, all judgments are ultimately self-judgments.

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Today i heard someone mention ‘White Privilege’ and immediately felt repelled from the conversation. I’ve been around a person or two who talked about white privilege a fair bit, and ultimately it just seems like a highly disempowering point of focus. It’s kind of like dwelling on the past, or trying to change something you cannot change (which i heard is how some people define ‘worry’). Why think about these things that are beyond our control?

For me, the best way i’ve found, via personal experience, to address overcoming any of the ism’s is to embrace Gandhi’s method and Be the change you want to see in the world. Being the change is the most any of us can do. And if you want to move beyond all ism’s, you can do that. How? Consider people who have done it before, or who at least have been closer than you and i. Think of the example of Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, Gandhi, St. Paul, Mother Teresa, St. Francis, Parahamsa Yogananda, Mahavira, Thoreau…how did these people do it? They gave everything away! They surrendered that which kept them separated from people. They let go of money and material fortune in exchange for emotional / mental / spiritual abundance and unconditional love for everyone and everything.

In so many ways, stuff separates us. Money, clothing, food, homes – these things provide us comfort, but at what cost? They comfort us, and then they lead us to think, “Boy, must be tough for all those people outside tonight, cold and hungry, naked and broke.”: And then maybe we feel guilty…like who are we to have these luxuries while others do not?

So, for Peace of Mind, a good prescription is to give stuff away. Simplify your life! Share more of what you have. Give, give, give! And when you find yourself taking, like taking words from a book or taking sound clips from YouTube, contextualize it all in the framework of giving. “I’m learning so i can give more abundantly. I’m listening so i can share more valuable knowledge with more people.This is a short-term investment in the flourishing of this mind/body so that it can better serve the entire universe!” You can contextualize all of your actions in the light of serving the Highest Good of All, and in that light you always experience Peace and the Goodness which is yours 🙂

All these different ways we can divide people..and likely left out millions of ‘other’ distinctions…alas…the point is there.

The more we favor one over the other, the more we paint a picture of reality that divides us. The more we honor all forms of life equally – animals, insects, humans, and plants oh my! – the more we live in the oneness, and experience the one love and the one peace wherever we are.

The Buddha might have said…Nirvana is seeing all things equally.

Maybe we can all move in that direction. See the saint in the sinner, the sinner in the saint, and the transcendent goodness and essence beyond all labels.

Cheers to freeing ourselves of all those things – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual – all of those things that separate us. That we experience the Oneness, the Goodness Always!

Firstly, it has nothing to do with changing external things in the world. It does have to do with shifting perception, and really only ‘my’ perception, so that the ‘my’ is the ‘One’ is the ‘All.’ There is no separation between the True I and the Whole. That is why ‘i’ think being a yogi is about on the highest level.

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One of the keys to ‘yogihood’ is the shift in identity. Instead of identifying with the physical mind/body, you identify with the entire creation, the whole, the Intelligence and the Love behind it all, in it all.

Yoga can translate to mean union, or yoke, so ‘being a yogi’ on the human level is about living as one, yoked together with everything else.

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Now let’s discern some tangible qualities of a human body ‘living as a yogi.’

Actually, let’s not. 😉

Because, Truth is one paths are many.

Everything in the world, as we know it, could be an illusion. Even i could be an illusion! Yo could be an illusion! Who can really know for certain?

So if you go around in the world ‘looking for yogis,’ you’ll likely see them everywhere, because you attract into your life whatever you focus on. Yet you’ll also notice the yogi comes in infinite variety of forms, so everyone is already a yogi in their own way.

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So what i really wanted to say when i sat down to write this post…

‘Inspiring Yogihood’ is not about ‘other people.’ It’s more about you, being the Intelligence, inspiring the mind/body you’re most directly responsible for to live in a way that is united, universal, yogic.

So that means, as the governing Intelligence, you direct the mind/body to ideas, people, and environments that are conducive to the yogic lifestyle. You move the mind/body to sit in meditation, to practice conscious breathing, to chant holy names, to study spiritual scriptures, to eat whole, healthy foods close to Nature, to walk and/or stretch the body to ensure it maintains in good physical health, to purify thoughts, and to serve the entire creation moment-to-moment, living a fully dedicated life to the Highest Good of All 🙂

Once one is established in the ethical precepts of yoga, living with compassion towards all forms of life, honoring the Truth, loving the entire creation, etc. then a lot of the tangible practices are no longer necessary. As i heard Swami Satchidananda say once, something like…”Once the character is perfected you no longer need to sit in meditation.” Ultimately, meditation is a way of moving in the world, not necessarily sitting still with a physical body. It’s a way of living detached from the outcome, in a witnessing state, remembering on some level that you are one with all of it, on some level it’s all for fun, on some level we’re all just playing different roles, so play your part well, and enjoy!

And ultimately, how could one person know whether or not another is completely established in all the principles of yoga (much like the Ten Commandments) anyway? So all an individual can do is practice for oneself, for the benefit of all. And really, because yoga is about unity and oneness, if it practically boiled down to one simple way of being, it might be, ‘Serve.’ Serve, serve, serve. Service is what love looks like. And yes, service can be sitting in meditation, sending love and light to whoever you think of, or just practicing repetition of a mantra. It can all be service! It just depends on your perception. Is it a dedicated act? Great! Then you are serving 🙂

So maybe yogihood is about renouncing the small self and orienting to the entire creation as a whole. Instead of thinking about the needs of the small physical body, you think, “How can i serve? What can i give to this Present Moment?” Sometimes the answer will be to give the body food or drink or a place to sit an meditate or exercise…who knows! Certainly, many times caring for the small physical body is a wonderful way to serve the whole. And it sets a good example!

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Then on some level, you can move past service, and realize that there’s nothing to do. God’s in control. It’s kind of like saying the prayer, “Thy Will Be Done.” We don’t really need to pray for God’s Will to Be Done…it already is being done! Like our prayers could affect whether or not God’s Will is done 😉 But that prayer does help us remind us, recenter us, and reconnect us with God, the Highest Will, and All That Goodness. So, might as well offer that prayer!

Once you reach the awareness of the Perfection of Creation, notions of serving don’t really make sense. How do you serve something that’s perfect? So then it more becomes about enjoying and having fun. And…the great news is…you realize that to one person might look ing ‘serving’ is also the number one way of having fun! The joy in giving and serving is an awesome Reality, one of the greatest paradoxes of Creation that i think is great testimony to the Goodness of God and All Creation. We experience the most joy when we are giving, when we are serving…what could be better than that?

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Anyway.

Love. Serve. Give. Grow. Expand. Evolve!

More Consciousness! More Awareness!

See The Self in All! Look for the Good in Everyone!

Know that what you see in ‘others’ is a reflection of what you see in yourself. And ultimately, there is no ‘other.’ It’s all You!

Cheers to freeing ourselves from judgments of things in the world and turning our gaze inward, so we focus on being the change we want to see in the world and choosing love each and every moment.

The second we think that our purpose here to go and help ‘other people’ and fix ‘other people’ and solve ‘other people’s’ problems…that’s when we’ve got to re-purpose!

As far as any of us can know, the entire world is an illusion – a dream. Who can know what’s real?

Perhaps that’s why Gandhi embraced, “being the change you want to see in the world.” So many have talked about “turning the gaze inward.” It’s not about what goes on outside in the world, but what happens internally.

Like Emerson said…something like…external events have no power over us unless we let them!

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On the spiritual journey, we are not here to ‘help other people.’ Ultimately, there is no other. And ultimately, we don’t know! So, how can we help the other, who might very well be an illusion, when we don’t know anything to begin with?

As soon as we become attached to knowing and to a sense of being right, that’s when we stop loving and start judging, maybe even criticizing and condemning, possibly striving to change ‘others’ because ‘we know better than they do.’

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Re-Purpose! Turn the gaze within. Be the change you want to see in the world. Helping yourself is helping everyone, including all the ‘others.’ The best thing you can do for everyone and everything (someone saying this ‘not knowing’ ;)) is to experience Peace, is to unconditionally love everything, is to become enlightened, is to realize your True Nature and abide in the Truth.

And the Truth shall set us Free to? Free to accept, free to love, free to enjoy, free to laugh, to play, to dance, to sing, to express ourselves fully and creatively, to embrace the fullness of the Present Moment, and to know God and Infinite Goodness. Free to live in Reality.

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What a silly way to live in the world…going around try to change the behavior of people, like one of us knows better than another.

For me, two of the strongest examples i connect with are marijuana and alcohol. Previously, this body has consumed copious amounts of both. Under the influence, had some good times and some bad times. And experienced a lot of pain, physical and mental/emotional. Also experienced some intense feelings of liberation and deeper understanding. So…pros and cons to everything. Personally don’t remember the last time this body consumed alcohol or smoked marijuana, and don’t have any plans to in the near future if ever again…yet i also find it so difficult to discourage anyone from doing either of them. I thoroughly embrace the place where i am now along this wonderful journey through life, and wouldn’t want to change anything about it (except maybe to digest dinner better ;)). Alcohol and marijuana have played significant roles for me, and as much as i abstain from them now, who am i to discourage someone from possibly experiencing the same highs and same lows i did that resulted in dramatic shifts in lifestyle and perspective?

It’s like the teaching about the hot coal…you’re holding the hot coal, and you ask your spiritual teacher, “Should i drop it? Should i drop it? It really hurts…it’s burning my hand…should i drop it now?”

Your teacher responds, “No, don’t drop it, hold on to it.”

You say, ‘Well, when will i know to drop it?”

Teacher, “When you no longer have to ask the question.”

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We learn from experience. Supposedly we can learn from the experience of ‘others,’ and i guess that makes sense if we’re all one 🙂 Then again, why not have the experience yourself? There might be pain, sure, but generally after valleys there is a peak, and so we ride the rollercoaster of life. Pain is a wonderful teacher, and with our personal experience we can then relate so much better to people which can enhance our joy of being in community.

I’m glad i’ve done a lot of ‘stupid’ things that i don’t ever plan to do again. I’m also glad that i make some decisions on a regular basis that i really enjoy and find them rewarding in the short-term and long-term. At the same time, who am i to try and force those win/win decisions upon anyone, and what’s to say they would be win/win for someone else?

Ahh…and now i am maybe starting to grasp a teaching from the Sermon on the Mount that generally has eluded me…”Don’t cast your pearls before swine, lest they be trampled underfoot.” Which reminds me of something my cousin shared with me a while back, “If you make a homeless person meditate, it might be like hell for them.”

Same same, but different. We’re all on the same journey, in the same place, Here and Now, but for each of us the prescription for happiness, joy, peace – fulfillment – might be completely different. That’s what i love about the Buddhist teaching of Upaya – skillful means. To experience peace and success with people, we meet them where they are at. We climb into their shoes and walk around for a little bit. We don’t go trying to change, but instead to understand. Apparently Stephen Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, said that if he could pick just one habit as the most significant, he’d pick “Seek first to understand.”

Seek first to understand. It’s not about changing anyone. It’s about understanding.

Notice too that seeking first to understand is a habit. That means it is practiced regularly! So it’s not like we suddenly reach a point of understanding. Seeking to understanding is a continuous process, hence we always find ourselves, on some level, in the space of ‘not knowing.’ Because we don’t know, and we’re simply seeking to understand, we free ourselves from inclinations to judge, criticize, condemn, and complain. Instead we embrace curiosity, and we engage with what is before us, seeking to understand.

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Recently, even in this present moment :-), as glorious as it is, this body is experiencing some physical discomfort from an excessive amount of feasting tonight. From the standpoint of ‘not knowing’ and ‘seeking first to understand,’ i guess i can embrace the discomfort – might as well call it pain – i guess i can embrace the pain as something beyond good/bad – it simply is. It is in the present moment, offering a message for healing, for growth, for higher consciousness and evolution, as all things do 🙂

What is the message? It is many! Even infinite. Certainly, just while writing this post and previously posting on a forum about things i’m grateful for in 2014, i was not nearly as aware of the pain. In fact, it might not have even been there! So one lesson here is the power of where we direct our attention. Whatever we give our attention to grows. Where awareness goes, energy flows. And directing attention to gratitude creates such wonderful sensations that the physical realm stops mattering so much.

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Re-Purpose!

What i want to write sounds selfish in some way, but i think ultimately it’s where the journey takes us, and at some point selfishness and selflessness merge, because the True Self is One, so looking out for your Self is looking out for everyone and everything.

Essentially, at least – Upaya! – for this body in the Here and Now – the journey seems to be very much about personal practice of certain disciplines that i find greatly enhance my awareness of the interconnectivity of all things, as well as enhance feelings of gratitude, love, joy, peace, and oneness. And maybe that’s where the spiritual vocation comes in…instead of thinking about ‘how to serve others’ in the context of teaching or coaching or counselling…i think for me the ‘service’ as well as the ‘growth’ are in the personal practice, and all the goodness flows from there. Namely, the service and the growth every moment is Presence – at least that’s the ideal 🙂

Which reminds, the most joyful/blissful moments of today, as far as i can remember – occurred when consciously taking deep breaths. Perhaps the key world there is consciously.

Living consciously. Being conscious. Become more conscious. Moment-to-moment-to-moment.

Mindfulness is moment-to-moment-to-moment. It is living in the Reality of Here and Now. Listening to sounds. Feel sensations. Becoming aware of what is Reality, Here and Now. To see, to listen, to touch, to taste, to smell. To notice, observe, witness. To be in this moment. What can you hear? What can you feel? What’s the body doing? What shape is it in? Are there any parts of the body you notice holding tension? Can you relax them? If not now, when?

Relax. You are in the Present Moment 🙂

And with mindfulness, in the Present Moment, we can notice the fleeting nature of our desires, and become aware that we have everything we need to enjoy our Here and Now. As i heard Bob Proctor say, “All you will ever need for fulfillment in life, is awareness.”

Awareness! Consciousness! Awareness! More conscious! More aware!

Mindfulness.

Listen.

Breathe.

Smile.

What have you been grateful in the year of 2014?

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One of my favorite lines from TV that i remember, from the Brady Bunch, the family is sitting down at the dinner table and the father is leading a prayer…all i remember…

“Help us to be ever mindful of our blessings.”

Amen! Of course, personally not a big fan of the idea of ‘blessings,’ because that kind of implies the existence of the opposite, ‘curses,’ as well, so i prefer ‘gifts.’ So many gifts! All divine gifts 🙂

Help us to be ever mindful of this abundance of divine gifts!

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Re-Purpose!

Ha! Speaking of overhearing life wisdom from TV, just remembered that i overheard ‘Re-Purpose’ from some political thing tonight that father eagle was listening to. Thank goodness for TV sharing divine gifts 🙂

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Re-Purpose!

Perhaps the biggest re-purposing for ‘me personally,’ this mind/body, is with food. And with the re-purposing of food, the rest of life more easily re-purposes. Food is the foundation in so many ways. Especially as far as the mind/body can understand, food is the foundation. Our Higher Self knows that the foundation is more like God / Spirit / Essence / Love, though the mind/body is just like “Food! Water! Air! Light! Bathrooms!” Hehe.

Anyway, the way to re-purpose, as i read from Thich Nhat Hanh…he says there different ways to eat food. Many of us might tend to eat so that we gain energy! We eat so that the body becomes energized and then we can go out and serve and love and give in wonderful ways. Nothing so wrong with that.

What’s the other way? We can eat to eat. Just like when washing the dishes, we can simply wash the dishes. Eating is not the means to anything else. Eating is the ends! The Present Moment is not the means, it is the ends! We are Here and Now in this Cosmic Moment, and it doesn’t have to get any sweeter than this 🙂 With awareness it can be sweeter than maple syrup.

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Re-Purpose!

Our experience in the moment…this is it!

Let more of our actions be oriented towards the reality of the action itself, not some future outcome. Peaceful ends by peaceful means – Peace is every step. We can eat to eat, clean to clean, think to think, read to read, sleep to sleep. All the while, there can be an understanding of how such activities are good for the long-term flourishing of the mind/body and perhaps humanity and all the world, yet…let us remember this moment!

Ultimately, who knows how anything might turn out? In one minute, a bomb could explode this computer, your computer, an entire city…who knows! Embracing not knowing, and the infinite possibility of Reality, we open up to the freedom we have to love here and now, to enjoy here and now, no strings attached! Love to love. Eat to eat. Let this moment by your moment to fully enjoy and experience the wonderful abundance of creation – steep the heart in gratitude! – and maybe even slip into the bliss and the oneness 🙂

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Re-Purpose!

When we think we are just a mind/body, then we eat to energize and nourish the mind/bod.

When we connect with our transcendent self, our true nature, the essence, Spirit – we remember we are eternal. Or you might say – “Relax, God is in control.” Either way, any actions the mind/body takes don’t have to be for any particular reason or to achieve any ends. Every action is the ends when we remember God and Eternity. The Present Moment is the Eternal Moment, and in every Moment we have the freedom to experience whatever we desire – whether it’s peace and love and joy or hatred and anger or anything in between 🙂 We have the power, tis a gift indeed! Choose. Choose. Choose. Live in the Present Moment- that’s where our power is to choose the quality of our experience. And in the Present Moment we can slow down…really slow down…slow…slow…slow…we can slow down so much…just to where the mind stops…the body stops…all attention goes to the breath…just noticing the breath…and then gratitude…smile…you’re on the cosmic camera 🙂 Wave to your Eternal Self!

As Gandhi said, do it with joy or not at all! Whether it’s cleaning a toilet, cooking lunch, or hugging a stranger. Do it with love, do it with peace, do it with joy…or not at all!

When we get over our ego, we realize that every moment counts. Each moment is sacred!

There’s nothing so grand for any of us to do. The grandness is in this moment. Enjoying the fullness of this moment is as grand as it gets. Because, God is in this moment. The entire unfolding of creation is in this moment. This is as awesome as it’s ever been!

The transcendent, liberating, enlightening experience is available to us all, Here and Now. And it doesn’t have to be with our eyes closed. We can experience it in lifting up a pen, in looking at a glass of water, in listening to the breath, in placing one foot in front of the other.

Small acts with great love. That’s what life is about.

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The ego might think…”i’ve got to be great! i’ve got to save the world! i’ve got to share this great information with everyone! i’ve got to find the best wife ever and raise a beautiful family with her! i’ve got to write this book and go on a speaking tour! i’ve got to teach all these people what i know and help them!”

If you’re not doing it with love, or with peace, or with joy, you might as well not do it.

Because it’s not so much what we do, but how we do it.

Do it with joy or not at all. Do it with love, or not at all. Do it with peace, or not at all.

None of us need to prove anything to anyone. We are existing, created! Being here and now is amazing enough. Just to be is miraculous! Compared to the miracle of being alive, making a million dollars is small time stuff.

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Small acts, great love. That’s God’s way. God always provides an abundance, more than we could possibly need (or maybe it’s just the perfect amount :-)). So it’s not like we ever really need to do anything. The best thing for us to do is to enjoy, which is really a state of being. Start with being in the joy, in the peace, in the love, in the bliss – be in the bliss! – and then do what you might. Stay with your peace, your bliss, and go from there. Each moment is packed with the potential of great joy. It doesn’t matter if you’re standing in front of a packed auditorium or in front of a urinal, all the enthusiasm you could ever imagine is available to you. The moment is sacred. The moment is holy. The moment is divine.

Small acts with great love. Step by step. Breath by breath. One smile at a time. Look for good, see only good, be only good. All of it, with love.

Love, love, Love 🙂

Om! Praise the Lord.

Nothing to do, nowhere to go, just being here now is more than enough.

Hallelujah!

Responsibility #1 to each and every moment: Enjoy. Experience Peace. Love.